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Book description

Book description
“The Anniversary” is the story of a young wife and mother, estranged from her dashing husband. The darkest of Balogh’s Valentine stories, Balogh shows that love doesn’t always follow a straight and narrow path, although the rewards can be great if and when lovers take a leap of faith. Taken from a review at Heroes and Heartbreakers: http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com...Appearances can be deceiving. What do we make of a young wife, still a nursing mother, whose request to attend a Valentine’s Day house party is refused by her absent husband Hugh, who says he’s coming home to spend Valentine’s Day with her? The selfish cur, or the despicable scoundrel; those epithets all sound good. But Amy, the Countess of Reardon, does not indulge in self-pity. She allows her maid to dress her so that she looks her best, even though she is conflicted about seeing her husband again.A faithless husband, who had married her almost a year before and not bedded her on her wedding night or any night since, who had brought her here on her wedding day and left the same evening to return to London? Who had been home only once since for those three silent weeks? Who had now forbidden her attendance at the only Valentine’s party of her life? Had she dressed like this for him? She hated him.A wife who hates her husband and a husband who dreads seeing his estranged wife—can this marriage be saved? The Earl of Reardon admits to himself that returning home for Valentine’s Day is “the hardest thing he had done in his life.” He had been back home once before, for the birth of their child. He stayed for three weeks afterward but returned to London after the christening. Hugh is wracked by guilt, for he believes that he raped Amy, on Valentine’s Day a year earlier, setting in motion a child and a hasty marriage.And now he was to set eyes on her again. And to work something out with her. Something that would make her life seem a little less like imprisonment in the country. Something that would make his own life a little more bearable—something that would give him just one good night’s sleep again.Let’s be clear—“a single drunken encounter—they had both been drunk—had had consequences.” No communication since their abrupt marriage, massive guilt on both their parts, psychological and physical distance: their only place of amity is a mutual love of their baby James. James is the light of Amy’s life.Hugh, holding his son after two months separation is overwhelmed: “How could one look at a baby’s hands, he wondered, and not believe in God? It was a thought that took him completely by surprise.” Hugh realizes that somehow he is going to have to turn back the clock. A year earlier he had wooed a young girl, taken “her away from a party she had no business attending right into the bed in which he had taken his pleasure with countless courtesans and mistresses.” It is past time for new memories to be created.Balogh deftly weaves scenes from the night that James was conceived into the narrative, bringing complexity to the actions and memories of the evening. Amy “had been drunk but not insensible” and as we learn, she had been in love with the dashing earl from the moment she first laid eyes on him in London. A mad crush culminated in a magical night, where she “enjoyed every moment of the intimate play of their bodies.” A year later two stiff people awkwardly share a formal dinner and make conversation. Hugh asks about his son,She licked her lips. “He likes to sleep on his stomach,” she said, “with his legs drawn up beneath him. He looks most peculiar. He was a very unhappy baby before I discovered that.”“I sleep on my stomach,” he said.She almost laughed and then did. Her laughter sounded nervous and quite out of place.There are more surprises in store for Amy. After dinner Hugh asks her to play the piano and sing, saying she “used to have a lovely contralto voice.” How does he know that? Had he ever noticed before “her bold drunk person had taken his eye at the opera house?” Balogh takes us behind the scenes with this information—we realize that both Amy and Hugh had watched each other avidly for a year before their intimate encounter. At the end of the evening Hugh slides Amy’s wedding ring off her fourth finger.“That, I believe,” he said very softly, “was an encumbrance. Apart from the fact that we share a son, we have no ties that merit the ring, do we?”He tells Amy that tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, she will be his valentine. What a risk Hugh takes. How much easier it would be to develop a formal, mannerly modus operandi, as a guide to their future lives. But he wants more than coexistence. A man with a plan needs co-conspirators and Hugh has three, his cook, butler, and gardener.When he asks, “How does one woo a young maiden on Valentine’s Day?” the cook sums it up with “You be nice to her, that’s what.” The gardener says that roses are magic, “Better than di’monds, m’lord.” The butler says music, suggesting a talented local pianist and violinist play for the couple. Candlelight, dancing, a romantic party for two—and a Valentine’s Day that starts with the earl serving morning chocolate to his wife as she awakens, a nod to the tradition that a young woman will fall in love with the first man that she sees on Valentine’s morning.Something else is awakening in Amy, her “woman’s needs.” She admits to herself that she wants more in her life than just a relationship with her baby. It doesn’t hurt that her husband, dressed in riding gear, is gorgeous. But Amy wants more than a second seduction; she wants “pure, wonderful, chivalrous romance.” Hugh also wants a “day of fantasy” but in order to see each other with fresh, forgiving eyes, frank conversation has to be embraced as well.When Hugh admits to Amy that she is a millstone around his neck, understandably she feels rejected and angry. But it’s springtime, they’re young and resilient, willing to risk all to have the marriage they both want. Tired of being excluded, Hugh joins his wife in the nursery while she nurses his son. Throughout the day they smile, talk, argue, reflect and slowly develop a tentative intimacy. Finally Amy cannot control her passionate desire to embrace what happened between them a year earlier.“I will not have it said ever again that my son was conceived in ugliness. He was conceived in beauty. I don’t care who you were or are or how carelessly you seduced me—though no seduction was necessary…It was beautiful, what happened…It was the most wonderful experience of my life, and I am glad James came of it.”Hugh is thunderstruck not by her words but her passionate anger, when she reclaims her memories, unlocks his own, and he remembers whispering “I love you.” Fast forward to a new Valentine’s Day evening, one filled with roses, music, dancing, and love. The earl tells his wife that “there are two men in your life, not just one” and whisks her into a romantic waltz. Before the evening ends he admits that he had loved her “secretly and unwillingly” for a year before they met by accident in the opera house. He tells her there has been no other woman in his life since their marriage.“I want you tonight and every night. I want to live with you every day and sleep with you every night. I want to be a father to my son—to our son—and to any future sons or daughters we may be blessed with. I want a marriage with you, Amy. I will settle for nothing less.”And of course Hugh asks Amy to marry him again and slides her wedding ring back onto her finger, saying, “With this ring I thee wed, my dearest love. Because I love you. For all time.”
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